Do you agree with WotC selling errata?

[Storm Raven]

And, with a single swirl of overbloated hyperbole, we re-enter Bizarro Land.

No, we enter "actually functioning like a company land".

Attempting to make money, and attempting to make money effectively, doesn't require black-cloaked villians in the Real World. You don't have to intentionally make errors in order to not employ proper editting practices.

They don't seem to use proper editing practices right now, so giving more errata would be an improvement. And your premise was that they would intentionally add errors so they could sell errata.

If you know the book will sell, and you know the errata will sell, and you know that both will make you money, you lose your incentive to edit the thing properly in the first place. Proper editting is a cost, and most businesses try to keep unneccesary costs down. If you know something will sell despite your slipshod editting, and you know that -- rather than paying for it later through the effort to create free errata -- you get to make money off it later, only a complete idiot would spend money now to avoid gaining money later.

The problem with this analysis is that it assumes that they would make money by selling errata. Yes, they would sell it, and some revenue would come in; but putting the errata together and getting it into salable form would eat that potential revenue up. I don't think they could make any kind of real profit on selling the errata, they would just avoid losing money. Because, right now, putting errata together and mamking it available is a money losing proposition - which is why they (and many other comapnies) are so slow at doing it.

So, nobody is buying/selling the PHB or DMG? Those products out of print?!? Any data to back up that claim? Any relevance to whether or not you should be supplying errata for free well within that period?

Did you not see that part about RPG supplement? Perhaps if you read what you are responding to, you would understand what point the other person is trying to make.

and errata is being produced and sold in new products, as has been argued on this thread.

No. It isn't. The Spell Compendium incorporates errata, but it is not a package of errata. It is a compilation.

 

[Raven Crowking]

They don't seem to use proper editing practices right now, so giving more errata would be an improvement. And your premise was that they would intentionally add errors so they could sell errata.

Was it? What I said was:

I would assume that, could I sell the book and then sell the errata for the book, making a few mistakes would be a way to make additional money. Not too many, of course (because we want to sell the original book), but enough to justify the errata.

Conversely, if you end up doing the errata essentially for free you have an incentive to keep the need for errata in check.

At least, in non-Bizarro Land.​

I don't see anything in there that says that the mistakes have to be intentional. What would be intentional is not bothering to edit all that well because slipshod editing is a source of later income.

Perhaps if you read what you are responding to, you would understand what point the other person is trying to make.

Amen, brother, amen.

 

[Storm Raven]

I don't see anything in there that says that the mistakes have to be intentional. What would be intentional is not bothering to edit all that well because slipshod editing is a source of later income.

Except that it really isn't. If WotC sold their errata, the liklihood is that they wouyld not be able to charge much (if anything) more than a break even price for it. And if they did start having books riddled with errors, then the front end sales of the product would suffer significantly, which is a critical element in an environment where the typical book has a selling lifespan measured in a few months.

Th key to selling errata is to transform it from something other than a complete money sink (and from the publisher's perspective, mostly a waste of time, money, and effort), and into something that pays for itself. The goal is to transform the current situation of "little or no errata, rulings, and FAQ answers, and what little there is, is often just as screwed up as the original or self-contradictory" to "regular, well-presented errata, that someone spent time preparing".

Keeping the errata free clearly has not accomplished this. I don't expect this situation to magically change just because a lot of gamers wish really hard.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Th key to selling errata is to transform it from something other than a complete money sink (and from the publisher's perspective, mostly a waste of time, money, and effort), and into something that pays for itself.

(1) "The key to selling errata" would assume that "selling errata" was already determined to be a good thing. Count me among those not convinced.

(2) The key to not having errata be "a complete money sink" is to edit the books properly in the first place.

(3) It isn't "errata" that WotC apparently thinks is a serious money sink, but editting. And that problem doesn't go away unless it somehow costs WotC to use slipshod editting practices. What you suggest, simply put, means that errata is available, but there is even less incentive to edit properly in the first place.

(4) As an example, there is no excuse for the Special Edition MM to have as many errors as have been pointed out in John Cooper's review here (http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=3256627).

The whole point of this "deluxe edition" leatherbound tome was to make it a fancy version suitable for collectors, while incorporating all of the errata that had been gathered at that point, so that the "stat block purists" would have a version of Core Rulebook III that they could use as-is from the book without having to worry about checking the stats against the errata file. The current version of the errata is all of six pages long - and yet, not all of the errata from these 6 scant pages made it into this "deluxe edition!"​

(4) This is the fault of the purchasing public, not the fault of WotC. Don't like the crap editting? Don't like that you're not getting errata to cover the crap editting? Stop buying the product. And make sure that WotC knows why you stopped buying. And make sure WotC knows that, when you hear their editting improves, you'll be buying again.

(5) You're right that this situation isn't going "to magically change just because a lot of gamers wish really hard". But it will change if those gamers instead vote with their hard earned cash.

Just my $.02, I know.

YMMV, I know.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread........

 

[sjmiller]

I can think of a number of game companies that have produced errata sheets like WotC does, and none have considered recalling a book for editing errors or misprints. Including (but not limited to) Steve Jackson Games, Game Designers Workshop, FASA, TSR, and Games Workshop.

Steve Jackson Games did actually recall a GURPS book due to horrific errors in it that made the book unusable. The book was a solo adventure and the page references were completely hosed.

They have also said that if you purchased one of the early printings of GURPS 4th edition and the bindings were falling off that they would replace it. That is not the same thing, though.

 

[sjmiller]

(2) The key to not having errata be "a complete money sink" is to edit the books properly in the first place.

In the immortal words of Steve Jackson:

Everyone makes mistakes, including us - but we do our best to fix our errors.

Nobody is perfect, including game companies. Properly editing a book does not mean it will be free from errors. It means it will be free from glaringly obvious errors, but not all of them.

I think that every game book I have purchased in the last 27 years has had at least one error in it, if not more. It's not that big of a deal. If the company releases an errata sheet, or makes it available on their website, then that is perfectly okay in my mind. You will never get a perfect book, but you can get darn close.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Nobody is perfect, including game companies. Properly editing a book does not mean it will be free from errors. It means it will be free from glaringly obvious errors, but not all of them.

Well, of course.

The purpose of errata is to clean up the errors that appear in a product. The better the product is editted, the less errata is needed. When less errata is needed, generating (and disseminating) errata is much less painful -- less of "a complete money sink" and more of "a good will advertisement", shall we say?

Proper editting doesn't eliminate errata. It eliminates errata being so bloody problematic, both from a consumer and a creator standpoint.

(And this isn't just a WotC problem....anyone remember the errata on TSR's Unearthed Arcana? Pages and pages....including nearly every single chart or table intended for character creation. SHEESH!)